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Tags: donald trump | butler | pennsylvania | assassination | attempt | rally | shooter

Witnesses: Secret Service 'Blew' Shooter's 'Head Off'

By    |   Saturday, 13 July 2024 10:54 PM EDT

Secret Service agents took out the gunman who opened fire at former President Donald Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania by shooting him in the head, witnesses are saying.

"They blew his head off. The Secret Service blew his head off," a bystander, who told the BBC that he saw the man, armed with a rifle "bear crawling" on a building roof about 400 feet away from where Trump was speaking on the rally stage, reports The New York Post.

And Trump, a senior law enforcement official commented, "came within inches of having his face shot open."

Video from bystanders after the gunfire showed what appeared to be a dead man, wearing light-colored fatigues, shot dead on the building's roof.

One man told the BBC that "you could clearly see him with a rifle," and said that his group tried to point out the man to the police "but it didn't seem like they knew what was going on."

The man had been on the roof for about 3-4 minutes before he opened fire, and five shots rang out, the witness said.

The shooter has only been identified as a white man. He had occupied an elevated position near the Trump podium.

After shots rang out, Trump put his hand to his right ear before Secret Service agents took him to the ground. In seconds, the former president told his detail to wait, and he pumped his fist in the air to the crowd before they took him away.

There had been some reports that Trump was hit by glass from a teleprompter, but the former president posted on his Truth Social account that he felt the bullet go through his upper ear.

The gunman reportedly was not carrying identification, and sources said he was not an attendee at the rally.

The Secret Service said one of the rallygoers was shot dead, and two spectators were critically injured.

The attack came just days before Trump will be officially named as the GOP nominee at next week's Republican National Convention, and marks the first assassination attempt of a president or presidential candidate since 1981, when Ronald Reagan was shot.

Sandy Fitzgerald

Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics. 

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Politics
Secret Service agents took out the gunman who opened fire at former President Donald Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania by shooting him in the head, witnesses are saying.
donald trump, butler, pennsylvania, assassination, attempt, rally, shooter
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2024-54-13
Saturday, 13 July 2024 10:54 PM
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